Tag Archives: healing and curing oils

Mace essential oil, another wonder of the earth. Though it isn’t counted amongst the 7 wonders of the earth, but trust me it’s no less. The oil has properties that can render even the most aware wonder-struck.

Mace the tree is a small evergreen, not more than 40 feet in height, with smooth, grayish-brown bark, green on the younger branches. The alternate leaves are oblong-ovate, acute, entire, smooth, and dark-green. The flowers are very small and unisexual. The fruits, smooth and yellow, resemble a pear grooved by a longitudinal furrow and containing a single erect seed about 1 1/4 inches long. The nucleus being the wrinkled nutmeg. The fleshy, irregular covering, scarlet when fresh and drying, yellow and brittle, is the mace. The essential oil is made by steam (or water) distillation of the dried orange-brown aril or husk.

Cautions – Mace is generally non-toxic, non-irritant and non-sensitizing. However, used in large doses there may be signs of toxicity such as nausea, stupor, and tachycardia, believed to be due to the myristcin content.

Mace essential oil is one amazing therapeutic oil that not much to do with any kind of artificiality, in the sense that the oil obatined from it is absolutely pure and harmless and highly potent. It is used in India as an integral spice of every dish.

Nutmeg oil has a warm, spicy, sharp aroma; it has a number of properties such as analgesic, antiseptic, digestive, an aphrodisiac, stimulant, tonic and anti-oxidant. In aromatherapy, nutmeg is used in the treatment of a number of conditions; it is used to treat -

Arthritis

Gout

Rheumatism

Poor circulation

Indigestion

Constipation

Flatulence

Nausea

Nervous fatigue

Anxiety

Nutmeg is also used as a flavoring agent in pharmaceuticals; it is used in soaps, cosmetics, perfumes, detergents and lotions. Mace oil is also used interchangeably with nutmeg and is found in many colognes and perfumes, particularly fragrances for men; mace is also found in many foods and drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.

Botanically, the plant belongs to Myristicaceae family and known as Myristica fragrans. Several species grown all over the world other than Myristica species, such as M. argentea, M. malabarica (Indian), and M. fatua, are rather similar to M. fragrans in appearance; however, they have less intense flavor and aroma.

There are various healing and curing oils available in the market, not at all pricey. People use them and in a way, are satisfied. Most poeple ask me “ why use essential oils when we are kind of satisfies with the regular chemical based oils”. There’s a lot that cansaid in answer to this question, read on.

The trees do not flower or fruit until about eight or nine years old (thus cannot be sexed until then) and yield about 100 fruits; by the time they are 30 years old, they can yield an average crop of 3 – 4,000 fruit a year. Trees (Myristica fragrans) can bear for a good 70 years.

Yellowish flowers are followed by large yellow apricot- or plum-like fruits. When they split open, these reveal the black seed (the nutmeg) wrapped in its red lacy aril (the mace). Both spices are dried separately, and the major producers are the Moluccas and Grenada, the latter exporting some 2,000 tonnes to the US each year. Nutmeg has always been more available and popular than mace, which is much more expensive; this is not surprising as mace equals one-fifth of the weight of the whole seed, and only 75 g (3 oz) mace are gained from 100 nutmegs.